We’re in the new year, with ideas about cooking at home more, trying new things and making it easy on ourselves. I promise you that these balsamic barbecue baked chicken thighs are just the thing to get you started in your 2024 journey.

January is usually when I get all the gusto back about being in the kitchen. I grab my cookbooks and dig through them and my memory for stand-out dishes that I made or ate in the last year and loosely plot out what I want to recreate at home.

Barbecue is always at the top of my list – I think it’s in my top five favorite types of foods – bold statement, I know. It’s mostly because I love sauces and I love french fries and the two usually go hand in hand with barbecue. However, to me it evokes a more warm weather vibe, and I wanted something that would still fit the theme but in a cozier, homier, wintery way.

Enter, balsamic vinegar.

It’s become one of my favorite secrets to make the ordinary a little extraordinary. I love it in dessert, and also use it to add depth and somethin’ to other dishes. And that’s exactly what it does here.

I also try to use January to do a good pantry and freezer eat down (including those condiments!), and because of that, I had most of what I needed at home to make this dish – you just might too! For the rest, I ran over to Zingerman’s Deli to round out my ingredient list.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make these Balsamic Barbecue Baked Chicken Thighs

bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs. Yes, chicken thighs. They are just better, IMO. If you’re going with the breasts on this one, you’ll need to adjust the cooking time – likely by about half (depending on the thickness of your chicken. Get it up to an internal temp of 165F.
grill seasoning/barbecue rub – because of course we’re seasoning our chicken before we sauce it!
barbecue sauce base – we’re making our own sauce here, so you’ll need all the making for standard barbecue sauce – plain tomato sauce, whole-grain Dijon, maple syrup, garlic, Worcestershire, brown sugar, S&P.
balsamic vinegar – I went with one aged 8 years- a solid everyday vinegar.**

How to make balsamic barbecue sauce

Mix the tomato sauce, maple syrup, Dijon mustard, minced garlic, Worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar in a medium saucepan.
Cook it down! Let the sauce cook down over medium/medium-low heat about 15 minutes until it’s slightly thicker. At that point, you can give the chicken an initial brush, and cook it down a little more while the chicken is in the oven.
Reduce the heat to low and let simmer another 20 minutes. It should be reduced in size by about 1/3.

How long can I store the barbecue sauce?

Store your barbecue sauce in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Because this sauce is vinegar-based, it should last in the fridge up to two weeks.

I served my chicken thighs with some oven roasted potatoes (giving the french fries a pass this round) and roasted broccoli- which meant that everything on the table was hands-off until it was time to eat.

I think that’s a great precedent to set for 2024, don’t you?

Zingerman’s Deli is having a huge balsamic blowout sale, so head over and stock your pantry! Besides the 8-year I mentioned above, I love this one simply poured over vanilla ice cream. YUM!

This post was sponsored by Zingerman’s Deli. Thank you for supporting the brands that support THB!